Thursday, April 18, 2013

More pretty faces out of seedling 1312. For now, they are just pretty works of art. Won't know for a couple of years if they have the "right stuff" to make it in Minnesota. One flaw I am seeing in 1312 and some of its kids is that they are so ruffled that they get tangles, as they don't have the indented "notch" at the end of the petals that is needed to keep the ruffles from hanging up. When I have an excessively ruffled flower, I try to "dumb it down" by putting it on things that open really well and have fewer ruffles. Sometimes it works. Other times not so well, as in the fourth picture below. But very pretty when un-ruffled. These are 1313 (out of 25805 x 1312), 1513 (an 8" flower out of 2612 x 1312), 2113 (out of 0412 x 1312), 2213 (out of 1312 x 10112), 2513 (out of All Things to All Men x 1312), 2913 (out of Not Guilty x 1312), and 1913 (out of 1312 x 8412).

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Bloom in the greenhouse is running a couple of weeks behind past years, due to more cloudy weather than is typical. I numbered my first seedling on April 8. 0113 is out of two seedlings I saw last year - 0412 x 1312 - the second and third pictures below. The look of 0113 is about what you would expect it to be as a combination of these two parents - rich, saturated color, soft watermark, ivory edge, petals that don't overlap, and the lighter color on part of the sepals which gives the seedling added drama.

1312 is proving to be the parent I was hoping it would, creating a variety of looks. Three more that I have numbered from it are below. The first is 0313, out of 1512x1312. The second is 0613, out of 1312 x Thistles and Thorns. The third is 0813, out of 0612 x 1312. 1312 is one of the earliest bloomers, as are its kids.

I also saw my first seedling out of Flying Purple People Eater. I was hoping FPPE would help me increase the size of my purple lines while keep some of my fancy edges and watermarks. A large percentage of the seedlings out of FPPE are dormant, so it will be another year before I see most of them. This is 0513 (below), which is out of 6412 (a round flower with a modest edge that goes back to fleur-de-lis patterned 8110) x Flying Purple People Eater. At 10", it was even bigger than I was hoping to get in the first generation. Hopefully, some of the plants I crossed FPPE with that had bigger edges will produce even fancier blooms in this size range..